The present invention relates to copyright protection for digital contents, i.e., digital rights management (DRM). DRM refers to any technology used to protect the interests of copyright owners of contents and services, and digital contents from unauthorized use in order to protect the interests of contents providers and digital products from copyright infringement via the production, distribution, and management of contents including fee charging and payment. DRM includes digital copyright management technology by which an authorized user only uses contents and pays a reasonable fee, software and security technology for copyright authentication and execution, and payment technology.
A survival policy and technical approach for this digital era have been attempted so that digital contents can simultaneously provide end users with the maximum satisfaction and contents providers and distributors with stable profits in the future. Accordingly, 25 companies including British Telecom (UK), Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (DE), MPEGAL (US), Telecom Italia (IT), ERTI, and the like, from 11 countries, are joining the digital media project (DMP) technical specifications organization. The DMP was established in December of 2003 in order to develop standards for interoperable DRM.
Conventional DRM designed for a specific user device environment needs to be ported to a device since there are a variety of user device environments. In addition, a ported DRM or a method of porting DRM depends on a DRM tool or an institution providing DRM. In particular, users cannot use contents that have been moved to another device.
The present invention provides a method of performing an operation between a device platform and a DRM tool so that contents to which a specific DRM tool is applied can be used by using a variety of devices. Accordingly, device manufacturers do not need to design a device for specific DRM, and DRM tool developers do not need to port their DRM tools in a variety of device environments.